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RE: Casualty Madness - 1/7/2011 6:40:26 PM   
abulbulian


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quote:

ORIGINAL: dwesolick

Well, I've been cleaning up the "Lenigrad pocket" (finally got that "right hook" strategy to work, but man it was a grind!) in late fall 42 of my GC and I can only DREAM of suffering 500-700 casualties per attack.
I am routinely seeing casualties of 2000-5000 per attack. Now granted, most of these Soviet stacks are in level 5 forts, but they have been isolated for weeks and I am attacking each stack with overwhelming force (and total air control, over the Leningrad area anyway), and usually from 3 or 4 (sometimes 5) sides.

In a couple cases I even had results where I suffered 7000+ casualties while the (isolated....for weeks) defenders suffered around 1000 and held! I had to restart the turn...cheesy as hell I know but I just couldn't stomach such results. I know, I know, these things can happen in war....Thermopylae, the Alamo, Bastogne, but still.....


Yeah, I too experience these types of inflated loses in my AI game when trying to clear out ISOLATE (2-3 turns) units the Leningrad area. I had all the ports along Lake L. My attacks suffered 2k-4k and the units in most cases did surrender in the end. So I'm not saying it's way out of whack, but something is a bit fishy here.

(in reply to dwesolick)
Post #: 31
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/7/2011 6:47:19 PM   
karonagames


Posts: 4712
Joined: 7/10/2006
From: The Duchy of Cornwall, nr England
Status: offline 		the 1% figure has nothing to do with damaged units being repaired. The 1% is referring to the Disabled pool which is created separately from damaged units.

This section explains how the damaged units return; the disabled pool return is a separate sub-segment of the logistics phase:

18.2.1. THE REPLACEMENT SEGMENT
The replacement segment consists of four subsegments;
return of damaged ground elements,
return of excess support squads, refit, and normal
replacement (4.2). Units must be in supply to
participate in any part of the replacement segment.
First, half of all damaged ground elements from
units are returned to the production and manpower
pools and made available to return as replacements,
however, only eighty percent of the manpower from
the damaged ground elements goes to the pool; the
other twenty percent being placed on the disabled
list. All other things being equal, returning ground
elements have a better chance of going back to
their original units. Next, excess support squads will
be returned to the pool and their manpower made
available to build up other ground elements.

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(in reply to abulbulian)
Post #: 32
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/7/2011 6:47:41 PM   
Joel Billings


Posts: 32265
Joined: 9/20/2000
From: Santa Rosa, CA
Status: offline 		The casualty screen left most column should match the combat report. In these cases damaged elements are counted as 1/2 of a kill. So 3 damaged 10 men squads will show as 15 casualties. The next column, the permanent turn losses are counting only those elements that are destroyed. The first attack I made in a turn showed casualties of 650 men, while permanent losses were 376 men. Of this 364 were KIA and 12 were disabled. So what really happened was:

364 KIA
12 Disabled
548 in damaged elements (reports this as 274 casualties - 364+12+274=650)

When the the damaged elements are returned to the pool, 20% of the men are considered disabled instead. Also, 2 damged elements may combine into 1 ready element, in which case the lost element is considered KIA. Also, the damaged element may be repaired in the unit in which case there are no permanent losses.

So in this battle with 650 causualties, you could end up with as few as:

364 KIA
12 Disabled

But more likely for the Germans, perhaps half of the elements will be sent back to the pool and half will be repaired, and in this case you'd end up with:

364 KIA
66 Disabled (12+(274*.2))
220 Wounded but returned almost immediately to duty
274 Effectively out of action for a short period due to the elements damage (these could also be considered lightly wounded as well)

Notice that the number of disabled is very low relative to the total number of men wounded or put temporarily out of action.

This is just one comat result, and what exactly happens with the damaged squads is impossible to say, but it needs to be considered when discussing "disabled" totals and return rates.


< Message edited by Joel Billings -- 1/7/2011 6:49:54 PM >

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Post #: 33
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/7/2011 7:18:26 PM   
Zovs


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quote:

Still the numbers make no sense given the odds


In the first example I don't see how 33,788 attacking German soldiers losing 631 makes the number and odds out of whack. It seem quite reasonable to me. Also, the Soviets had 16,729 men and lost 7,322 again I fail to see the issue here.

quote:

I too experience these types of inflated loses in my AI game when trying to clear out ISOLATE


Again, I fail to see these types of losses as "inflated".

I found this source on the web and the attached image as well:


German casualties in Barbarossa 1941

According to Das Deutsche Reich u. d. 2. Weltkrieg, Bd. 5/1, p. 885 :
[Verluste d. Ostheeres ohne AOK Norwegen] :

|--------------------------------------------------------|
| 1941                                                   |
|--------------------------------------------------------|
| Month | Dead   | Wound.  | Miss. | Illness + Frostbite |
|-------|--------|---------|-------|---------------------|
| June  |  8,883 |  29,474 | 2,701 | 54,000              |
| July  | 36,144 | 120,409 | 8,435 | 17,000              |
| Aug.  | 39,334 | 142,807 | 7,672 | 34,000 (estimated)  |
| Sept. | 27,492 |  99,635 | 4,560 | 56,800              |
| Oct.  | 23,804 |  86,396 | 3,562 | 66,000 (estimated)  |
| Nov.  | 16,945 |  64,116 | 2,990 | 73,092              |
| Dec.  | 14,752 |  57,747 | 4,594 | 90,907              |
|--------------------------------------------------------|
| 1942                                                   |
|--------------------------------------------------------|
| Jan.  | -->  87,182 (combined)   <--         | 127,718 |
| Feb.  | -->  88,014 (combined)   <--         |  85,086 |
| Mar.  | --> 105,042 (combined)   <--         |  62,858 |
|========================================================|
| Total:  --> 1,082,690 (combined) <--         | 567,461 |
|--------------------------------------------------------|



Attachment (1)

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Post #: 34
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/7/2011 7:18:40 PM   
bwheatley

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

When attacking a unit, you always want it in a position where it can only retreat to a hex adjacent to an enemy unit. This ZOC to ZOC retreat will cause extra losses and greatly increase the chance of surrender if the unit is isolated. So move and attack in such a way to put the units in a pocket in this position.

No one has commented on the fact that a very large part of the 700 losses in the example above might actually be damaged elements that repair, leading the actual long term (KIA/disabled) losses to be much less than 700. This is especially true for high experience German units that tend to take lots of damaged results and less destroyed results, and given their high experience tend to repair more quickly. I could be wrong, but you need to study the permanent losses that result from these battles, not the "casualties".


Maybe we need another line on the report to show damaged units. So it's less misleading?
That's probably my one big irk with the game. Not enough visibility into long term review of numbers. To say oh lets look at long term losses per turn. Etc.

Also when you play PBEM the manual says hit 'l' first thing to see your losses but i think that is boned. T7 i see 0 german losses and only 35k for me. :)

I'm sure you guys will get it figured out. But with wargame nerds like use the more reports and numbers the better.


(in reply to Joel Billings)
Post #: 35
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 12:15:05 AM   
jomni


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder
Taking losses while clearing out a pocketed but fairly determined enemy should be costly...shouldnt it?


Yup just like every island in the Pacific.

(in reply to KenchiSulla)
Post #: 36
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 12:35:08 AM   
raizer

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jomni


quote:

ORIGINAL: Cannonfodder
Taking losses while clearing out a pocketed but fairly determined enemy should be costly...shouldnt it?


Yup just like every island in the Pacific.


disagree with this strongly...you talking 1941, where russian pockets were a disheveled mob-rabble...not unlike the french 55 infantry division who ran from the posts outside of sedan in 40. Comparing the russians to the Japanese soldiers who were fighting and not surrendering is folly. Japanese didnt surrender...russians surrendered in the millions. The two did not have equal morale and fighting tenacity, particularly in the early periods of the war, prior to the defense of mother russia being introduced as a theme to the soldier, during the periods when the soviet soldiers were not sold on protecting the motherland. During the time when the field grey soldiers in their hob nailed boots were undefeated and looked upon with a kind of awe by the peasant army (this would change temporarily outside moscow in 41 and change for good at Stalingrad) and We talking summer 41, a time when the soviets did surrender in the millions, did have a mistaken belief that maybe that captivity wouldn't be so bad-not Okinawa or Peleliu where the Japs were fighting, as bushido warriors for their divine emperor.

The soviets woke up in time, around winter 41 for a short time and then winter 42-but not in summer 41 where they did, in many locations, literally just lay down when encircled

< Message edited by raizer -- 1/8/2011 12:38:32 AM >

(in reply to jomni)
Post #: 37
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 12:55:42 AM   
Oleg Mastruko


Posts: 4921
Joined: 10/21/2000
Status: offline 		Lotsa axis fanboy myths in this thread....

I apologize in advance for using the term "fanboy" again - it appears that some people are especially sensible to this word.

How else do I call stuff like "Russians laying down when encircled" or the very name of this thread "casualty madness". Words as strong as "madness" being used for what to me, and many others, seem like pretty normal casualty figures.....

(in reply to raizer)
Post #: 38
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 1:05:50 AM   
raizer

 

Posts: 276
Joined: 12/6/2010
Status: offline 		actually Im a sov fanboy at heart but you cannot tell me that russians didnt surrender in the millions during the first couple months of the war-so Im not "sensible" to the word-you are fine with the soviet fighting spirit in the summer of 41 being equated with the troops from Japan holding out in coral caves-im not, not a biggie.  I got the game like you, and will enjoy playing russians-



< Message edited by raizer -- 1/8/2011 1:08:26 AM >

(in reply to Oleg Mastruko)
Post #: 39
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 1:11:50 AM   
Oleg Mastruko


Posts: 4921
Joined: 10/21/2000
Status: offline 		Russian morale in 41 was actually very variable and "impulsive", for lack of better word (I am not a native english speaker). Many authors were commenting Germans never knew whether a unit in front of them will surrender easily, or will fight like berserkers or Japanese fanatics till the last drop of blood and the last man alive - lots of examples for both ends of the "morale spectrum" so to speak.

Putting that aside, this thread, like others before it, failed to convince me that there is anything wrong with the basic combat and casualty model. Perhaps the casualty reports are not clear or user friendly enough, but the model appears to be fine. Calling it "madness" is certainly overreacting.

Also, reading AARs, seems to me problem lies with people who thought playing Axis will simply be easier, or who constantly complain about problems from only one side (you guessed it - Axis).


(in reply to raizer)
Post #: 40
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 1:33:46 AM   
raizer

 

Posts: 276
Joined: 12/6/2010
Status: offline 		unless you like playing the AI, you need the axis fanboys and "complainers" to participate here in the forum and in pbem, dont dismiss "us" so causally .

And you have had to have read the thousands of accounts in the Ukraine, prior to the Einsatzgruppen arriving, of german soldiers being treated as liberators, by the descendants of the Ukrainian kulaks and, accordingly, there were huge hauls of prisoners in the South who knew not what was in store for them.

And again, the casualty figures are fine by me-its just comparing russians in summer of 41 to the soldiers of Nippon that gave me a serious itch





< Message edited by raizer -- 1/8/2011 1:34:59 AM >

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Post #: 41
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 3:02:14 AM   
Oleg Mastruko


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quote:

ORIGINAL: raizer
unless you like playing the AI, you need the axis fanboys and "complainers" to participate here in the forum and in pbem, dont dismiss "us" so causally .


I actually like fanboys, I like "fanboy clubs", and I like people who clearly say they belong to some fanboy club - I personally claimed membership in some fanboi clubs for some Matrix games or particular sides in some games. It's OK when people clearly advertise their colors, instead of claiming "objectivity" while posting blatantly one sided posts.

However some people are very sensitive to that term and think it's an insult. (I never mean it that way.)

Also, no other army in history had as many fanboys as WW2 Wehrmacht, which becomes quite obvious on WITE boards lately

I look forward to playing the Axis in PBEM one day, but I will start with Sovs. Axis are clearly the harder side to play, but hey that's historic. My friends among beta testers say that in the hands of the true expert Axis is almost unstoppable. I am looking forward to becoming that expert, not crrying "madness!" when I lose 100 men more than I wanted in the first week of the war....


(in reply to raizer)
Post #: 42
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 3:26:52 AM   
bwheatley

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko


quote:

ORIGINAL: raizer
unless you like playing the AI, you need the axis fanboys and "complainers" to participate here in the forum and in pbem, dont dismiss "us" so causally .


I actually like fanboys, I like "fanboy clubs", and I like people who clearly say they belong to some fanboy club - I personally claimed membership in some fanboi clubs for some Matrix games or particular sides in some games. It's OK when people clearly advertise their colors, instead of claiming "objectivity" while posting blatantly one sided posts.

However some people are very sensitive to that term and think it's an insult. (I never mean it that way.)

Also, no other army in history had as many fanboys as WW2 Wehrmacht, which becomes quite obvious on WITE boards lately

I look forward to playing the Axis in PBEM one day, but I will start with Sovs. Axis are clearly the harder side to play, but hey that's historic. My friends among beta testers say that in the hands of the true expert Axis is almost unstoppable. I am looking forward to becoming that expert, not crrying "madness!" when I lose 100 men more than I wanted in the first week of the war....




Think you'll find quite a lot of confederate states of america fanboys. Myself among one of them.

(in reply to Oleg Mastruko)
Post #: 43
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 5:06:53 AM   
notenome

 

Posts: 608
Joined: 12/28/2009
Status: offline 		And the thread goes way off track. Now as everything in WitE, the casualty mechanics are fairly complex and obscure, so its hard to put a finger on what exactly the figures should be. Now one thing that appears to be well modeled is that most losses in the beginning of the war were NCL; frostbite, illness etc. Unfortunately, though the number of casualties is roughly right (roughly a million men lost) the type of casualties is wrong. Axis casualties tend to shakedown to 50/50 killed/wounded (even for attrition) when combat casualties should be about 3.5:1 disabled/killed and NCL losses should be something on the order of 9:1 or 10:1 disabled/killed. The second problem is that disabled losses return much, much to slowly. NCL losses returned on average in a month (25% a turn) and combat losses returned on average in 3 months (7% a turn). Change these two things and the Axis become much, much more resilient, which I believe they should be.

What this creates is a large amount of flux for the Axis. Their units will be constantly understrength as men are constantly being rehabilitated, but pauses (such as in mud or when a unit is refited) should allow a unit to get its strength back quickly.

(in reply to bwheatley)
Post #: 44
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 6:56:39 AM   
Joel Billings


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From: Santa Rosa, CA
Status: offline 		If you think that losses are averaging 1 to 1 in killed to wounded, then you don't understand what I've been trying to tell you. Disabled are only the most seriously wounded. There are many more wounded that don't get tracked by the system as permanent losses as they are in elements that get damaged but not destroyed.

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Post #: 45
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 5:42:33 PM   
Jim D Burns


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From: Salida, CA.
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

If you think that losses are averaging 1 to 1 in killed to wounded, then you don't understand what I've been trying to tell you. Disabled are only the most seriously wounded. There are many more wounded that don't get tracked by the system as permanent losses as they are in elements that get damaged but not destroyed.


As a long time AE player, I’m aware of what you mean here Joel, and personally I had no trouble discerning this in game. But I think it needs to be displayed better in game during the casualty breakdowns for combat resolutions.

Damaged elements are a new concept to a lot of players and not intuitive since you also have disabled elements in game. Very easy to confuse the two, especially since damaged elements are not tracked in any kind of global tally record the way killed and disabled are. So they need to be highlighted somehow when they do occur.

Jim


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Post #: 46
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 6:57:25 PM   
PMCN

 

Posts: 625
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From: Germany
Status: offline 		Let me quote myself from my AAR. Here is the real "casaulty madness"

"The 286th Security division of all things advances to secure the ground. General-Mayor L. Govorov rallies his troops and launches a counterattack on the security division. The 286th Security division musters only 5000 men, and 90 guns while the 9th, 11th Rifle divisons supported by the 25th Cavalry division and 45th Tank Bde outnumber them with 24,000 men, 248 guns and 31 tanks. The battle is distressing in the extreme as it seems the enemy is equipping his security troops with captured weapons, 1 tank, 909 men and 7 guns are lost in the attack even though we outnumber the enemy nearly 5 to 1. Our troops advance through a hail of machine gun, rifle and mortar fire to finaly drive off the invaders forces. The estimates place their losses on par with ours at 833 men and 28 guns."

This is not an isolated incident as it happened several time in the turn the most extreme odds I had about 9:1 and had again fairly even casaulties. If you watch the fight at detail lvl 4 you will see where the damage is coming from. Most of it is "device_x is damage by attack_y" things. Rarely are you getting hard kills. A damaged unit has about half its size in casaulties listed in the loss report. Also you see that pre-retreat the casaulties were actually lower...in the above fight it was only about 500 men killed in the attack the remaining 300 came in the retreat, as did a lot of the artillery losses. Pre-retreat the casaulties stood at 900 to 500...even though I had crushing superiority. When I attacked Rumanian infantry divisions my losses in the attack before my men started shooting were on the order of 4000 men to a few hundred.

I stronly recommend watching at least the occasional fight at a message setting of 4 to see what the combat really is like. Otherwise you are flying blind for the most part. To me the madness is thinking you can attack a division that has just been cut off and get out of the fight with a couple of skined knees or something.

(in reply to Jim D Burns)
Post #: 47
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 9:47:37 PM   
Zovs


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Status: offline 		"...with 24,000 men, 248 guns and 31 tanks. The battle is distressing in the extreme ... 1 tank, 909 men and 7 guns are lost in the attack even though we outnumber the enemy nearly 5 to 1."

I see no problem what-so-ever here at all. You're attacking troops only lost 909 men out of 24,000, you must be joking or are being sarcastic that you find this distressing.




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Post #: 48
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/8/2011 9:56:59 PM   
Jim D Burns


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Status: offline 		You need to be specific here with your numbers, since damaged is not disabled, so you have to break it all down to help us truly understand what really happened. Damaged equipment is still part of the units TO&E and gets repaired on map inside the unit rather quickly. And it does not get tallied in the casualty reports, but it does show up as casualties in the combat reports.

I guess a better way to explain it is this; assume a damaged squad has 1-3 walking wounded guys, so they get back into action pretty quickly and never leave their units TO&E. Assume disabled squads have 4-7 severely injured guys, so they’re out of action for quite some time and leave their units TO&E to enter the replacement pools later as replacement equipment. And killed is killed of course.

So even though your casualties are roughly 900 and theirs are 800, it could be that you suffered 90 damaged squads (would show as 900 casualties) and they suffered 10 killed squads, 30 disabled squads and 40 damaged squads. So as you can see the numbers reported can be very different outcomes.

So it is very possible your 90 squads or a good portion of them are not really permanent casualties at all, they just need a little time to get repaired. So without a breakdown of real casualties (killed/disabled) vs. temporary casualties (damaged), getting upset about the numbers may be a bit premature.

Jim


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Post #: 49
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/9/2011 9:43:24 AM   
saintsup

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

You need to be specific here with your numbers, since damaged is not disabled, so you have to break it all down to help us truly understand what really happened. Damaged equipment is still part of the units TO&E and gets repaired on map inside the unit rather quickly. And it does not get tallied in the casualty reports, but it does show up as casualties in the combat reports.

I guess a better way to explain it is this; assume a damaged squad has 1-3 walking wounded guys, so they get back into action pretty quickly and never leave their units TO&E. Assume disabled squads have 4-7 severely injured guys, so they’re out of action for quite some time and leave their units TO&E to enter the replacement pools later as replacement equipment. And killed is killed of course.

So even though your casualties are roughly 900 and theirs are 800, it could be that you suffered 90 damaged squads (would show as 900 casualties) and they suffered 10 killed squads, 30 disabled squads and 40 damaged squads. So as you can see the numbers reported can be very different outcomes.

So it is very possible your 90 squads or a good portion of them are not really permanent casualties at all, they just need a little time to get repaired. So without a breakdown of real casualties (killed/disabled) vs. temporary casualties (damaged), getting upset about the numbers may be a bit premature.

Jim



Thank you !! I finally understood the point.
IMHO, combat report information regarding "casualties" is very misleading then.

(in reply to Jim D Burns)
Post #: 50
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/9/2011 5:10:54 PM   
PMCN

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: dlazov66

"...with 24,000 men, 248 guns and 31 tanks. The battle is distressing in the extreme ... 1 tank, 909 men and 7 guns are lost in the attack even though we outnumber the enemy nearly 5 to 1."

I see no problem what-so-ever here at all. You're attacking troops only lost 909 men out of 24,000, you must be joking or are being sarcastic that you find this distressing.





What is distressing is that I inflected less casaulties even though I outnumbered him 5:1 and forced a retreat. And pre the retreat damage I had only inflicted 500 or so. And this was not against dug in troops, they had just moved in. Also the "distressing" since it is from an AAR also had to do with the fact my own weapons were being used against me.

(in reply to Zovs)
Post #: 51
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/9/2011 5:17:45 PM   
Zovs


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Status: offline 		If you had them completely surrounded (with no hex to retreat to) and in a pocket then they could not retreat and would have surrendered instead. If you leave open an escape route or hexes that the unit can rout to in the pocket they will (if they have the MP) retreat instead. Still not distressing in the least.

What is more distressing is if you put the AI on Hard and have it rip open a 40 to 60 mile gap in your lines and you have no troops or reserves to put into the gap.


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Post #: 52
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 8:45:09 AM   
Jim D Burns


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely
What is distressing is that I inflected less casaulties even though I outnumbered him 5:1 and forced a retreat.



Attackers almost always took more dead and wounded casualties in WWII than the defenders did when attacking an enemy determined to hold its ground. That's why it was said you generally needed at least a 3-1 odds ratio for any real chance at success and higher odds ratios were preferred. Had you routed him I'd have expected the defenders casualties to rise, but I see nothing wrong with your results.

Jim


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Post #: 53
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 11:38:44 AM   
PMCN

 

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From: Germany
Status: offline 		I see a lot wrong with the results Jim simply because I had him cold. That is a second line combat formation hit with 3 Rifle divisions to do the "pin", and a cavalry division and tank brigade to do an encirclement. It should have evaporated and been rendered combat incapable from that attack, as it was it barely got a scratch.

The actual combat losses on my side are trivial, I loose more than that for those units in attrition per turn (25,000 men a week attrition losses according to my latest turn results when no combat occured). I am not complaining about my losses, it is just annoying that their losses were so low. I lost 900 men in the attack, inflicted around 500 casaulties before they pulled back and another 300 in the retreat. For those odds and given I had a massive artillery superiourity I would have expected much better than this. It is "distrubing" to do so poorly against a second line unit because "what does that mean when you take on the big boys?", this is from an AAR as well so it was "in character" for the STAVKA officer writing the diary. He was also disturbed by reports that "our own weapons" were being used against "us."

I am pointing out that the people complaining about taking losses against "cut off" russian units should take a deep breath and realize the losses are much much worse for the russians. I just lost 9000 men on two failed attacks in the blizzard, mind you I knew I was unlikely to succeed but it was a critical point, in those two attacks I lost nearly 1800 of those casualties to the Luftwaffe. Even when I threw an entire army (3 infantry divisions, 5 cavarly divisions and infantry brigade) at a single division and won I lost more on the attack then they did around 4000 soviet to 3500 german casualties with the retreat losses in that case around 2000 so only 1500 inflicted by combat.

Also statements like you made Jim over combat losses being higher for the attacker are not true in this game in all cases. I've had AI attacks fail against me and the losses on my side are higher more often then not. In general the german's loose very little when they attack, it adds up over time though. Soviet losses are usually higher attack or defence, win or loose. Excluding 41 blizzard turns I can think of a hand full of cases where the German's lost more than I did, though in fairness that is because the AI often achieved fairly substantial local superiourity.

Watching the failed ones I mentioned it was: Squad damaged/destroyed by 81 mm mortar/50 mm mortar/MG 34/Kar 98/Sig X for a good 20-30 min. They got cut down in waves. It was pretty much WW1 redux. The CV value of the german position dropped from 21 to 15 even though I think in total they had only 500 casaulties. Most of those from Flamethrowers and my mortars which seem to fire only after my troop hit his front line.

From what I can see the battle logic is well done. It looks like what you expect: long range artillery bombardment, medium range artillery bombardment, mortar&machine gun fire, rifle&light mortars followed by more heavy mortars&anti-tank gun&infantry gun fire. Then the attacker fires, though I see my troops firing back sometimes in between depending on ranges and such.

(in reply to Jim D Burns)
Post #: 54
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 1:44:57 PM   
Jim D Burns


Posts: 4013
Joined: 2/25/2002
From: Salida, CA.
Status: offline 		I don’t know the engine well enough to defend or criticize this particular battle result, so my comments concern generalities of WWII combat. A retreat is not a route and I don’t expect the losses to be very high for the defense if the commander executes a well planned retreat in good order. This is a classic military operational maneuver and is designed to preserve a forces fighting strength at the expense of giving up ground.

Assuming the unit retreated early in the combat resolution, who knows, perhaps only a third of your stuff ever even got to shoot at it. I don’t know since the inner workings of the combat engine mechanics are a mystery to me. But it’s not beyond belief that the defender stood his ground initially, then because he was outnumbered, the defense decided to retreat before being overwhelmed. In such a case if the defense manages to execute the maneuver without routing I would expect the attacker to have taken more casualties and the defender to have gotten away in relatively good order.

But to expect a 5-1 odds attack to simply obliterate your opponents unit every single time purely based on the odds shows a clear lack of understanding on your part when it comes to WWII combats and casualties.

I recently (within past 6 – 8 months perhaps) did a casualty breakdown for the German Panzer Lehr Division a few days after the massive Cobra bombardment and breakthrough. German records show the unit actually only lost about 1,000 men in the 3-5 days the sources covered. That’s for the period covering the bombardment and all the fighting that then occurred as the allies poured through the breach into the German rear area.

Popular myth has people believing the division was wiped out, that simply is not true. It was shocked into a state where it was unable to stop the allied breakthrough, but it still recovered enough to allow it to fight a delaying retreat and was only short about 1,000 men 3-5 days later after the fighting it was involved in was over.

In game terms the allies had far more than a 5-1 advantage vs. the Panzer Lehr that day, it was probably closer to a 10-1 or 12-1 or more, with about 3,500 dedicated aircraft and artillery from three different Corps bombing the daylights out of the division.

I posted the exact numbers in a discussion in the WitP AE forums about artillery effects. Unfortunately the search function does not work on the forums right now so I can’t find the thread to link to it, but it’s in there somewhere.

Jim


< Message edited by Jim D Burns -- 1/10/2011 1:51:34 PM >

_____________________________


(in reply to PMCN)
Post #: 55
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 3:26:50 PM   
Rasputitsa


Posts: 2903
Joined: 6/30/2001
From: Bedfordshire UK
Status: offline 		I am not into the detailed description of the way the WiTE casualty models work, but it would be wrong just to look at the body count. The military objective is to render you enemy militarily ineffective, that can be achieved with, or without, killing people in enemy units. What would be more worrying is if, after high odds attacks, enemy units maintained high levels of efficiency, I would be more interested in the CV remaining.

Retreats can be managed in good order, but I would have thought that it was the exception rather than the standard in WW2. Once a unit has left it's positions, communications become very difficult, yes they had radio, sometimes, but without modern communications nets, command and control breaks down. In fixed positions you know which sector each sub-unit is holding and can send messengers and you have fixed comms lines, but once into a forced move, where do you send the messengers and under fire where have the elements of your force gone ?

I agree that casualty rates were not necessarily as high as you might expect (each man will have a high sense of self preservation), as long as a unit cannot act efficiently, it is militarily ineffective and that's all you need. If you can keep them on the run, then you're winning.


(in reply to Jim D Burns)
Post #: 56
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 4:03:37 PM   
Walloc

 

Posts: 3141
Joined: 10/30/2006
From: Denmark
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

I recently (within past 6 – 8 months perhaps) did a casualty breakdown for the German Panzer Lehr Division a few days after the massive Cobra bombardment and breakthrough. German records show the unit actually only lost about 1,000 men in the 3-5 days the sources covered. That’s for the period covering the bombardment and all the fighting that then occurred as the allies poured through the breach into the German rear area.

Popular myth has people believing the division was wiped out, that simply is not true. It was shocked into a state where it was unable to stop the allied breakthrough, but it still recovered enough to allow it to fight a delaying retreat and was only short about 1,000 men 3-5 days later after the fighting it was involved in was over.


If u have futher interested in the subject and doesnt alrdy have read it, i would suggest reading:

Zetterling, Niklas: Normandy 1944: German military organization, combat power and organizational effectiveness, J. J. Fedorowicz, Winnipeg, Man. 2000. ISBN 0-921991-56-8.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

(in reply to Jim D Burns)
Post #: 57
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 4:52:28 PM   
PMCN

 

Posts: 625
Joined: 9/8/2000
From: Germany
Status: offline 		3 infantry regiments under attack by 3 Rifle divisions will be able to retreat, and with luck in good order yes. Add in the cavalry and the tanks and the situation changes. Add in a crushing heavy artillery superiority and there would normally be even more of an issue. Russian artillery probably is not much of a factor after the initial attack since they can't displace rapidly to follow the advancing infantry. But the trouble is the tanks, their carried infantry and the cavalry would be able to cut off the retreating troops without signficant issue. They move faster than the security forces on foot and once a gap is made they would pour through it. THAT is why I think the results are off. Also the sort of retreat while under pressure we are discussing here would be hard for top line troops to pull off, 2nd line security forces are unlikely to be that sucessful.

The artillery in WitPAE was a WW1 artillery generals wet dream till they toned it down. It was wholy and completely absurd and had no relationship to reality.

The reason the casaulties are the way they are is that the attacker gets subjected to the full fire power of the defender, so you advance through waves of artillery, motar fire, machine gun fire, rifle fire, more mortar fire, infantry gun fire, AT gun fire, FLAK gun fire etc. Then you start to shoot back and when you reach a magic number the enemy pulls out. Regardless of how much fire power you had left to fire. In watching the blizzard fights I saw one combat end after a single attack on my side. In that case it was 395 german and 129 soviet losses (German Rgt attacked by single Soviet division), probably 200 or so of those losses are from the retreat if not more.

(in reply to Walloc)
Post #: 58
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 5:10:53 PM   
Jim D Burns


Posts: 4013
Joined: 2/25/2002
From: Salida, CA.
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Walloc
If u have futher interested in the subject and doesnt alrdy have read it, i would suggest reading:

Zetterling, Niklas: Normandy 1944: German military organization, combat power and organizational effectiveness, J. J. Fedorowicz, Winnipeg, Man. 2000. ISBN 0-921991-56-8.

Kind regards,

Rasmus


Thanks Rasmus, I too have this book and it is a facinating resource. Lots of good info contained inside.

Jim

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(in reply to Walloc)
Post #: 59
RE: Casualty Madness - 1/10/2011 5:14:11 PM   
Jim D Burns


Posts: 4013
Joined: 2/25/2002
From: Salida, CA.
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely
Also the sort of retreat while under pressure we are discussing here would be hard for top line troops to pull off, 2nd line security forces are unlikely to be that sucessful.


But they retreated in game and didn't route, so in your example they pulled it off. Whether or not they should have pulled it off is its own argument, and probably should have been your point all along, but having pulled it off they should enjoy the benefits of a successful maneuver just like any other unit.

Jim


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(in reply to PMCN)
Post #: 60
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